notes vs shapes on the fingerboard

Toohey

Unthink it's possible to play And practice guitar so insanely much, just all day n all night, that you no longer see boxes nor patterns at all? You just know how to make the guitar sound exactly how you want it to and then just do it. Almost watching your fingers as you make them make the sounds you want...I've heard that quote of Django being " Django is the music", or something along those lines...I think it's because he might have been at that point of expression....hmmmm...what am I talking bout ...somebodys top me.....now that is a funny way to end my comment with that mis-auto correction....!?

Bones

I think his quote is something like he doesn't know music, music knows him???

I know the real Djangologists out there will find the exact quote.

Jazzaferri

Many musicians have mastered their instruments and no longer think in boxes or shapes or patterns or whatever. They play the music that is inside them. If you are thinking about where your hands are going or what note you are going to play next well, that is what one does when one practices not while playing.

As Baro Ferret said, he wasnt intimidated by Djangos technique, he felt he cold play as fast and as easily as Django, it was the musicality of Djangos mind that made him feel so much less of a player that he stopped.

As Salvador Dali said in his inimitable style "painter, no matter how had you try to paint very badly, it will still be evident if you are mediocre"

It is not Djanogs technical skill that Stochelo most admires in Django, for technically speaking he is every bit as good as Django, and he has all four fingers so he can do things that Django could not, it is his musical genius, his mind.

FrankieDetergent

i admit i haven't studied django solos other than one, minor swing (1937). but in this piece he uses specific arpeggios for specific chords. and i mean only those arpeggio notes and not "coincidentally intuitively has a bit of the arpeggio notes", this means that the guy was not playing from his "talent" but from his knowledge.
well.. if after many years his brain eliminates useless theory and just plays.. that's a different story, but the path to this mastery point is thru knowledge. every great guitar player knows theory (even if very informal, that's still a theory) and the lack of it results in limits of the player. it results in rock or blues.

now, i decided to go note names all the way. yes it's harder in many respects, but, i seem to have a personal attachment to those notes, u see.. a while ago i glued on the fingerboard the note names with their specific color, and they stick out in my mind even now when i removed them. without them i see only shapes, and like i said, some shapes are very distinctive, but if u remove some notes and add others like more jazz specific, the shape is confusing, and i don't know each of the "note's" or "point's" quality. i don't know if it's sad, eroic, a sort of a leading tone, etc..
and it depends on which point i land on the downbeat, even if i memorize all of those shapes.
it just... all leads up to note names for me, the problem i had is that some of those minor chords with major sixths have notes outside of harmony, and i dont have a good knowledge of a c# or f#.
i forgot to mention that i transpose, i never play in A major for example oh no, the root A is a happy-naive note? oh no, to me A will always be a plain sad dark-reddish note. i just optically transpose the fingerboard three frets down.
i made another diagram of the fingerboard, change of plan. looks like christmas lights

Lango-Django

Hey, Frankie, I'm really not in a position to be giving anybody else advice, but I'm going to take the risk of pissing you off with my big mouth and give you some anyway...

I bet you'd like this exercise I do that I call the "One-string-fun-fuck-around"... the deal is, pick a string, any string, but you can only play on that one string... then put on your favourite backing track and do some fun fucking-around.

What's amazing is how your fingers will eventually learn how to find those notes, almost as if they could do it all by themselves behind your back...

Second-top recommended thing to do right after smoking a San Francisco Slim...

FrankieDetergent

when i picked up the guitar i played just the first string for 2 weeks, and many times i did this by accident because of broken strings, even now i just have 2 (nylon) strings on my new gj guitar (i can't post pictures yet because it's 90% finished ..the details don't exactly look like victoria's secret lingerie right now),
right now i'm in learning a bit of "box" that's not crystal clear to me, 2 zones to be exact, 1 were the third position (the E in C major scale) meats the 6 (the famous A minor pentatonic position), and 2 were the second position (D) meats the third position (E again) :x . for a few days i'm playing just in those 2 boxes.
but i'll get to that, probably the D and the A strings are less familiar to me. (i can't give up playing by note names in my head, i like them)

on this forum i'm looking exactly for advice from anyone and weird ones are my specialty. i guess weird topics is my thing, i'm actually trying to hold back for some time now on starting a topic named "what creates a musical question", but i'm still managing to contain it. my advice to you is easy with the f language cause i got banned on one forum for something like that.

jlander9

Damn man, your busy making diagrams! I'll just say this. Theory is great and it's helpful, shapes are great and they are helpful, crazy x-mas light maps are great and they are helpful. But i'ma give you a secret that will make you a great guitar player and that helped a million other people around the world. Just play the freakin guitar ! There is such a thing as overkill and over thinking. Watch this clip and you'll see first hand how masters learn to be masters.

FrankieDetergent

well.. at least i gave up on the metronome, speed exercises or picking exercises or any sort of exercises at all. that much i did do, but until christmas i'm very fond of those lights.

Passacaglia

FrankieDetergent wrote:

well.. at least i gave up on the metronome, speed exercises or picking exercises or any sort of exercises at all. that much i did do, but until christmas i'm very fond of those lights.

I find the metronome sort of like grandma's gift of thermal underwear at Xmas. Undeniably not the most thrilling gift, but a necessary one.

FrankieDetergent

for rhythm playing yes it maybe. but i'm soo not into chord rhythm playing right now..
for me the left foot tapping works best.